The book of Revelation – Study 4 – Neville Clark – “The Rise of the Beast”

The Book of Revelation

 Study 4 – by Neville Clark for Enfield Ecclesia’s Special Effort

“The Rise of the Beast”

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The Book of Revelation

Study 4 – by Neville Clark for Enfield Ecclesia’s Special Effort

“The Rise of the Beast”

Reading Revelation Ch 13

The Rise of the Beast – Western Europe

Dear Young People, what a story we have got before us this evening. This is the story of Europe, Western Europe, actually, and how the Empire of Rome in Western Europe has ravaged its way through European history for the last 2,000 years. We spoke last time, in our last class about the Rise of the Dragon, which was really the development of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire based around the capital city of Constantinople.

Tonight we are talking about the Western half, this is Western Europe, and you know, in the context of this discussion about the beast of Western Europe, you will find enormous detail about the work of the saints. I mean intimate detail about the work of the saints in the next 50 years, all you could want to create a picture for ourselves about what the next 50 years holds for us in the direct sense when dealing with the Roman Empire, so hold on to your chairs!

This is where we’ve got to. Constantine in 324 AD took over as the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. And once he had got control, he did two very critical things. The first one was, of course, that he converted the empire to Christianity, that happened in 324 AD and he became the first Christian Emperor of the Roman Empire. The second thing he did was he created a second capital, in fact he moved, he moved his capital from Rome to Constantinople in the east. Now the empire had if you like, two legs, in the words of Daniel Ch 2. There were two capitals now of the Roman Empire, one in the west, and one in the east; Rome, as you know, and Constantinople.

As far as the book of Revelation was concerned, that was a momentous change, not only because the Beast had to change from the great red dragon of Revelation 12 to the beast of the sea, that you have just read of in Revelation Ch 13, but also we had to create a second beast, and you are very familiar with this on the screen. The eastern Roman Empire, based on around Constantinople was now defined by the Dragon, and the Western Roman Empire, after Constantine’s time in Western Europe, was now defined by the beast of the sea, and that’s the beast that you see in the bottom left hand corner of the slide. This beast inherited the seven heads and ten horns of the great red dragon on the very far left of the screen, of Revelation Ch 12. Over time, if you look at the bottom row of the screen the great red dragon would become Christian and become, after 324 AD, the beast of the Sea. The beast of the sea would evolve over time and become the scarlet-colored beast of Revelation Ch 17. So Revelation 12 on the far left, the great red dragon, Revelation 13, the beast of the sea, Revelation 17 the scarlet colored beast, all had seven heads and ten horns. They are consecutive beasts, and at least from the beast of the sea, from 324 AD onwards, they relate to Western Europe.

You will see just above that in the middle of the screen, a beast of the earth. Now for the students amongst you who have looked at these things, you will appreciate the beast of the earth is simply the 8^th head of the beast of the sea. And the reason this is so significant is because the 8^th head, is in fact, an imperial head of the beast of the sea; it represents the Holy Roman Empire in Central Europe. You will appreciate there is a contrast and a couple of points to make. The first thing is that the beast of the earth and the beast of the sea exist at the same time. Now understand that point clearly. If we look at the great red dragon to the beast of the sea to the scarlet colored beast along the bottom of the chart, those beasts are sequential. While the beast of the sea was alive in Western Europe, there was another beast created, called the beast of the earth in central Europe. The beast of the earth is the Holy Roman Empire created between Pope Leo and Charlemagne in 800 AD. It is called the beast of the earth because it is an inland beast, as opposed to the beast of the sea which was a coastal beast. The beast of the earth is an inland beast, a Germanic beast, and Germany has got very little coastline and it is substantially a land-locked country.

The beast of the Sea

I am going to ignore this evening, the image of the beast and the false prophet. The image of the beast, in fact, becomes the false prophet; it’s a reference to the Papacy, which of course is our last address in this particular series. Now come with me to Revelation Ch 13. This is where you meet the beast of the sea and all you are reading when you come to Revelation 13:1 is the next phase of the Roman Empire after the conclusion of Revelation 12. The beast with seven heads and ten horns in Revelation 12 was the pagan Roman Empire. The beast with seven heads and ten horns in Revelation Ch 13:1 is the Christian Roman Empire – same meat, different gravy, you know. It is just the next evolution of this beast after it has become Christian. What we are going to do this evening is, we are going to run you through the history of western Europe and show you just how unstable Western Europe becomes without a beast to control it. We are going to bring ourselves right up to our day to the scarlet-colored beast of Revelation 17 which is the EU, and then we are going to talk about the next 50 years after that, of the saints involvement with the European Union, and its ultimate destruction. There is just one other thing that I should point out to you, if you have a look at the slide here, do you notice there’s a big difference between the end result of the dragon in Constantinople and the end result of the beast and the false prophet? When Christ comes he will bind the dragon for 1,000 years and the dragon will not be killed until the end of the millennium when he is loosed “for a little season,” as we found in our last study and he is finally killed a 1,000 years later.

Not so of the beast or the false prophet, they are executed in year 50 at the commencement of the 1,000 year reign, and that’s an important point to observe. These beasts are dying at different times. Between the dragon of eastern Europe, and the beast of the sea, or his later successor, the scarlet colored beast of western Europe, the beast is by far, by far, the most dangerous, so much so, that you cannot allow that beast to survive into the millennial age. You can bind the dragon for 1,000 years, but you cannot let the beast survive beyond the end of the 50^th year. He must be destroyed as must the false prophet. There shall be no false religion, you see, in the kingdom age, and this beast has got blasphemy written all over it. It cannot be bound for 1,000 years, it has got to be destroyed.

V 1, Revelation Ch 13, “I stood on the sand of the sea and I saw a beast rise up out of the sea,” John says, “having seven heads and ten horns and upon his horns ten crowns and upon his head, the name of blasphemy,” so this is the Christian Roman Empire, based in Rome, after 324 AD. You’ll note in v 1, as we made the point in our last class, he has got crowns on his horns. That compares with Ch 12:3 with the beast, the great red dragon, he had crowns on his heads. What’s the point? Well, by the time you get to Revelation Ch 13:1, those horns are ruling themselves. So we are at a time in the Roman Empire therefore where the ten barbarian tribes had got self-determination. Rome has fallen, therefore Revelation Ch 13:1 is speaking about the Christian Roman Empire after 476 AD when the barbarians had taken control of Western Europe, and the beast is struggling for existence.

As we found last study, v 4, they worshipped the dragon which gave power to the beast, it is not long before Constantinople sends armies across from east to west to militarily assist the western Beast of the Sea, because of the onslaught of the barbarians. Revelation 13:11 introduces us to a second beast. You have the beast of the sea in Rev 13:1 and you have another beast in v 11 coming up out of the earth. This is the beast of the earth. In Revelation 13: 1, the beast of the sea has got seven heads and ten horns. In Revelation 13: 11 the beast here has one head and two horns, he looks like a lamb and speaks like a dragon, so it is a very different beast. This now, in V 11 is the rise of the Holy Roman Empire in 800 AD a phase of the Roman Empire which would last for 1,000 years until 1806 AD when it was destroyed by Napoleon Bonaparte.

The beast of the earth no longer exists

So the beast of the earth in v 11 has come and gone and no longer exists, he is a feature of history. Why do we call him the Holy Roman Empire? Well, we call him “holy” because he looks like a lamb, he impersonates the Lord Jesus Christ, he impersonates Christianity. Why do we call him Roman? because he speaks like a dragon at the end of v 11. Why do we call him an empire? because in V 12, he exercises all the power of the first beast, you see, he is a beast, he is an empire. He is Roman because he sounds like a Roman dragon, and he is “holy,” because he looks holy, he is an impersonator. This is an empire that was a coalition between the emperor and in the first instance, Charlemagne in 800 AD and the Papacy, and it is the emperor and the Pope who are the two horns on the head of this beast.

If we have to plot the geographical locations of these beasts on the map you will see the beast of the earth as the Germanic kingdom right in the very centre of Europe. You will see the beast of the sea as, we call it here a Latin kingdom, if you think of Latin America, Latin means Spanish, so the beast of the sea is a Franco-Spanish beast on the coastal area of Europe. The dragon of course, in Constantinople, the image of the beast, down there in the Papal states, in Italy. So that’s where those beasts live. We are talking tonight about the beast of the earth and the beast of the sea, but you will appreciate that the beast of the earth is going to come and go, and the beast of the sea is going to last all the way until Christ comes. He’s going to change himself to the scarlet-colored beast but he is going to look very much the same all the way through.

The decline and fall of the Roman Empire

In 330 AD Constantine established the second capital in Constantinople and the Roman Empire looked like this, as we said, two legs of Daniel’s image, two capitals, in Western Europe. Having established the military capital in the east in Constantinople, and having left, if you like, government still in Rome, everything ran fine, until about the 5^th century, until the 400s. Now we already know, that in 476 AD, Rome fell, that is the entire area in the red on the screen, that is, the entire western Roman Empire is going to collapse and fall, this is the “decline and fall of the Roman Empire” and it relates to the western Roman Empire. Now, why did it fall, what caused it? Here was the greatest catalyst of it all. By about 450AD you see, the Huns began this enormous onslaught from the east. You see for many years the Roman Empire had employed barbarians as mercenaries in their army, and before long, those mercenaries became very “Romanised,” they thought like Romans, their culture was Roman, they may not have been Trinitarians, but they were Christian. They said to the Western Emperor that they wanted land in the Roman Empire to settle their families because they were doing the fighting on the borders of the Roman Empire. They weren’t given land. For the most part, they were refused because they weren’t “true blue” Romans. Before long, these barbarians started to take lands for themselves, in fact no-one could stop them because they were the army, they were the ones who had seen active fighting so they were good soldiers. They were no match for this fellow! And in 450 AD Attila the Hun comes in from the east. He was called “the scourge of God” and he came in with ten thousand and thousands of horsemen at lightning speed, hundreds of kilometres a day, they could make, and he comes in and he invades the Western Roman Empire. Well, the barbarians were no match for Attila, and they jumped the Danube River and they start coming into the Western Roman Empire, right into the centre of the Western Roman Empire. They are not given land, so they take it and all of a sudden, the Western Empire is “declining and falling,” great, great tracts of land are taken by the barbarians and occupied by the barbarians. Attila doesn’t last long, actually, and after Attila personally died, the Hun kingdom disintegrated because they were nothing without their leader, but he had done the damage and he forced all these Germanic barbarians westward and into the centre of the Empire and they were now there to stay.

Interesting little fact for you, Venice. Venice was created as a consequence of Attila the Hun. People were so terrified by the Huns, because they would slit everyone’s throats of course, they left the mainland and they leaped onto the islands because at least if you were on the islands you were safe from the cavalry, and that was the origin of Venice, just after 450 AD. You might say to me, “Well, what about the army of Constantinople, why doesn’t the army of Constantinople come and help?” Because, before the Huns got to Western Europe they went through Eastern Europe and the army of Constantinople was fully engaged fighting the Huns on their borders, far too preoccupied to bother with helping Western Europe and as a consequence of that, Western Europe falls. And this is how things looked like by about 500 AD. The yellow is the Ostrogoth…they’ve taken the entire peninsula of Italy, you can see the Franks in the purple, western Europe has fallen, brothers and sisters and  young people. The beast is gasping for breath. There is no unity any more in Western Europe. This began the “dark ages,” you know, literacy just plummeted, the rule of law disappeared and there were border wars every year all throughout the Western European region.

In Revelation 13:3 it says, “And I saw one of the heads,” that’s one of the heads of the beast of the sea in v 1 “wounded as it were to death.” What happened was the imperial phase of the Western Roman Empire, the sixth head of the beast of the Sea, was all but killed. Now I say, “all but killed.” It is going to resurrect as it turns out and become the eighth head, that is to say, after the Goths, the Ostrogoths, had established themselves in Italy and ruled for 60 years, an imperial ruler would leap back on the throne in Western Europe, in fact, he would be called Charlemagne,   and so significant was the next imperial reign, that it is given its own beast, but it really is the beast of the earth in Revelation 13, it is simply the eighth head of the beast of the sea. In 476 AD Rome has fallen, and the entire phase of imperial government has gone by the board, and we’ve got Ostrogoths, or Goths, ruling Italy and as a consequence of that, it’s not long before the Pope finds himself in trouble, enormous trouble, because whilst these Goths are Christians, they were not Catholic, they were not Trinitarian.

Before long, it’s not even the Ostrogoths, it’s the Lombards that start marching down the Italian Peninsula after the Pope. The Pope could see the writing on the wall, so he quickly made haste and sent messengers off to Charlemagne, the king of the Franks, that Charlemagne might come and help him, and of course Charlemagne did, and this is why France is the first “son of the church.” They come, and after three horns are torn out of the head of the fourth beast of Daniel Ch 7 and that territory given to the Pope, the Pope is now safe, you see, and he’s got an army to defend him called The Franks and the Pope and the Emperor have just created in 800 AD “The Holy Roman Empire,” and because there’s an emperor, we now have an imperial head on the Western Beast. So the sixth head that was wounded almost to death has now revived and has become the eighth head. You might say, “Well, why has this beast only got seven heads if we are up to the eight head? Understand there were only seven different heads, the eighth head is simply a resurrection of the sixth, and there is the imperial head of the Beast of the Sea, called “the eighth head” or otherwise called “the Beast of the Earth,” and there it is in Revelation 13:11. Another beast came up out of the earth, two-horned, the Pope and the Emperor, looks like a lamb, religious, speaks like a dragon, Roman, a very, very fierce beast.

Well things went along rather fine after Charlemagne had conquered Western Europe but you will notice the difference here, if I just take you one back, Charlemagne was a Frank and he conquers all the Franco-German territory and the Italian Peninsula, and that’s what they call the Holy Roman Empire. Charlemagne of course died, and bequeathed his empire to his three sons. One son got France, and let’s think about it like this, one son got Western Germany, and one son got Eastern Germany, and the western son, the Frankish son, let’s call him, decided he didn’t want to be part of that Empire any more, and the Holy Roman Empire shrank back to Germany and Italy as you can see it there.

Charlemagne’s sons weren’t the sort of men Charlemagne was and they weren’t interested in fighting like Charlemagne did. So now you have the Holy Roman Empire a Germanic Empire, the capital began in Aachen, moved to Frankfurt and finally ends up in Vienna which is where it was when Bonaparte destroyed it, in Austria. But notice the Papal states there in the green at the bottom, that’s what you read of in Revelation 13: 15, that’s the “image of the beast,” or the icon of the beast, or the minute copy of the beast of the sea that the Pope has built himself down in that land he controls. When we say “the image of the beast,” what we are simply saying is this, the Pope has created for himself a little empire over which he is the emperor, it is just a little back yard, well, it’s bigger than the Vatican City, but it is just a little back yard at the bottom of the empire, where he runs things himself, he’s got his own army, he collects his own tax, and he rules it like an emperor, an image of the beast of the sea.

Then it happens, everything runs along just fine, and then in 1789, there is a revolution in France. The monarchy falls, the monarchy of King Louis XVI falls, the guillotine was rolled out, 30,000 die in the reign of terror that ensues, and they call in the only man who at that time could bring any law and order back to the country. Napoleon comes in and he thinks he is going to restore the fortunes of France. He thinks he is going to add France to the old Holy Roman Empire, get rid of the Pope, appoint himself as emperor, and recreate Charlemagne’s empire in central Europe without the Pope. Napoleon, of course, was a Frenchman, Charlemagne was a Frenchman, and that’s his grand plan.

God had other ideas, you see. God certainly intended for Napoleon to come on the scene, He did not intend Napoleon to create an enormous Western Empire. What God intended Napoleon to do was to destroy the beast of the earth, was to destroy the Holy Roman Empire.  By the time Napoleon had finished his conquests through Western Europe, pretty much all of Western Europe was divided up between three groups, France, countries allied with France, and countries controlled by France. Napoleon has conquered Western Europe, and the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in Vienna, in Austria, has abdicated and given Napoleon the crown of the Holy Roman Empire and has retreated back to just being the King of Austria. Well, when the empire loses its emperor, you have destroyed the empire, and that is exactly what Bonaparte did, unbelievable, but that is what Napoleon Bonaparte achieved in about 20 years.

Bonaparte didn’t intend to leave Europe without options. You see, Napoleon looked across the Atlantic at the United States and said, “Ah, do you know, that could work, the model they are adopting in the United States, that could work for Europe, and Napoleon’s got an idea, he says, “I wish to found a European system, a European code of laws, a European judiciary, there will be but one people in Europe. Europe thus divided into nationalities, freely formed and free internally, peace between States would become easier, the United States of Europe would become a possibility, and he’s a long way before Schumann, and he’s thinking about the European Union as a consequence of his control of Europe. That’s what Napoleon thinks will be the right answer for Europe and that’s what he wants to do.

The thing was, of course, that after the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon lost all the territory he had taken. France’s empire shrank. Within 12 months, it shrank straight back to France. The countries of Europe now licked their wounds and tried to make the best of it. The beast is dead, you see, the beast of the earth, the Holy Roman Empire is dead, so there is nothing now welding these countries together, there is no unity at all between the countries of central Europe. Europe hasn’t really ever existed without an empire in it, not in living memory, you see, and Europe’s very unaccustomed to not being controlled by an Empire, or of having an emperor present, or a great army that can ward off an invader on the borders. As a consequence of the French Revolution, you know, there were revolutions all across Europe, and emperors are toppling, left right and centre, all across Europe, and Europe is falling into anarchy, into absolute anarchy.

The beast descends into the bottomless pit

The way the Bible describes that when you come to Revelation 17:8, is that “the beast descended into the bottomless pit,” and it simply means that the Roman Empire of Western Europe melted back into the population, there was no empire, and Europe was going to charge forward into the 19^th and 20^th centuries, rudderless, and every country is going to try and make the best of it for themselves. There are going to be skirmishes, and there are going to be disagreements and there are going to be no powerful army to bring order to Western Europe, until somebody stands up and says, “This will never do, we can’t go on like this,” and they declare war in Europe and World War I begins when Kaiser Wilhelm says, “We need to recreate the Holy Roman Empire, we must recreate the Holy Roman Empire.” For 2,000 years Western Europe has been under the control of the beast, “there must be an empire, and we’re going to do it from Germany,” and why? “because the Roman Empire was a Germanic Empire. We have always been the power house of Europe and we are going to be so again.”

So Germany takes the lead and plunges the world into War in World War 1 and tries to form an empire. But they fail, as you know, Germany did not win World War I, there was no empire and so they try again and 30 years later it happens again. You will understand that Hitler creates the third Reich – the German word for Empire is “Reich,” he’s creating the third Empire. Kaiser Wilhelm tried to create the second empire. The Germans wouldn’t agree that Charlemagne had created the first empire because he’s a Frenchman, the first Germanic ruler of the Holy Roman Empire was Frederick of Barbarossa in about 1200 AD, so Barbarossa was the first Reich as far as Hitler was concerned, Wilhelm was the second, and he would be the third, and he believed that if he won that war and created this third empire, that it would last for 1,000 years. That’s what he wanted, 1,000 years. Remarkable isn’t it? And he lost the war, he lost the war, but you can see Europe lurching back and forth, trying to create an empire, trying to recreate the empire that Napoleon had so miraculously destroyed. And they must have it, they must have it, and unless they get it, they will go to war again and again. Well the Europeans worked out very quickly that after two World Wars in 30 years that they are going to have to put Germany on a leash, they are going to have to do something to control Germany because this insatiable desire to keep rebuilding the Western European empire, that is to say, to breathe life back into the beast is going to mean that Europe is going to be continually at war until that finally occurs.

What would you do therefore if you were the master planners of Europe? Well, in 1950 Robert Schumann suggested integrating Europe’s coal and steel industries so that in 1951 they formed the ECSC, the European Coal and Steel Community. Now what’s behind this? The major coal fields in Western Europe http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/saar.htm  run in a seam in the Ruhr valley between France and Germany, that is on the border, as it so happened, between France and Germany. If either of those two countries, which were really the powerhouse counties of Western Europe, if either of those countries planned to go to war, against the other one, they would be detected immediately because they would start hauling coal out of those coal fields. What do they need coal for? to smelt steel. What do they need steel for? to make weapons. It happened twice in the 20^th century, therefore we will nationalise that enormous seam of coal between France and Germany, and will form the European coal and steel community, determined, they said, to prevent another such terrible war. European governments concluded that pooling coal and steel production would, in the words of the declaration, “make war between historic rivals France and Germany not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible.” So in 1951, they formed the ECSC. Six countries were involved, France, of course, Germany, of course, Italy, they were the three foundation members of the Holy Roman Empire, and the three Denmark countries, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, those six countries formed the ECSC.

In 1957, those same six countries went one step further. They decided to pool other areas of their economies. The treaty of Rome in 1957 created Eurotom, the European Atomic Energy community. It created the EEC, the European Economic Community which today we call the EU, the European Union. The members then began to remove trade barriers between themselves in order to have the Common Market. European unity had begun in earnest, you see, and this is exactly what Napoleon Bonaparte foresaw as the right solution for Europe.

Interesting point, whereabouts was the Treaty of Rome signed? Ok, no prizes for this one, it was signed in Rome. Whereabouts in Rome was the Treaty of Rome signed? In a coffee shop overlooking the Tiber? It was signed in the Lateran Palace. Where’s the Lateran Palace? In the Vatican. So the Papacy presided over the formation of the European Union. Can you see now, if I were to show the slide of those beasts again, as you have a hand out of, in 1957 when the scarlet-colored beast is formed, the latter day stage of the beast of the earth, it’s got a woman riding on its back. The Catholic Church has designed the European Union and now controls the direction, I mean, she’s got reigns on this thing and she’s going to govern the European Union into the kingdom age, if she can. Remarkable! the Lateran Palace, in the Vatican.

The beast of the sea becomes the beast of the earth

Well, there you are, I can show it to you right there. In 1957 the beast of the sea becomes the beast of the earth. Now what has happened, of course, is the beast of the sea after the demise of the Holy Roman Empire, slips into the abyss, and melts into the population of Europe. We’ve got the confederation of the Rhine, we’ve got various alliances that are trying to keep the peace in Europe, but nothing was going to work. World War I, nothing still works, World War II, ECSC, EEC, EU, so that in 1957 the beast is formally now, the scarlet-colored beast and it’s never had a woman on its back before, but it does now, because of what happened in the Lateran Palace that day. The European Union is formed, under the auspices of none other than the Pope himself.

Now come to Revelation 17, look at the significance of that. Revelation 17 was the last phase of the Western European beast, the beast of the sea has become the scarlet-colored beast, seven heads, ten horns, same thing as we have seen before, “And he carried me away,” in v 3 of Revelation 17, in the spirit into the wilderness and I saw a woman sit upon the scarlet-colored beast, full of the names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns,” so there she is, there’s the signing of the treaty of Rome in the Lateran Palace at the formation of the European Union.

The beast is a scarlet-colored beast but he’s got seven heads and ten horns because he’s simply a revival of the beast of the sea of Revelation Ch 13. And what sort of government, what sort of government, does the EU have? Well, look at V 12. “The ten horns which thou saw are ten kings,” so this is the ten horns of the last words of V 3. “Those ten horns are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet but received power as kings one hour with the beast, these have one mind, and they shall give their power and strength unto the beast.” What sort of a government is that? You know, the EU calls its government style a “supra-national government,” not an international government, a “supra-national government.” A “supranational government’ is a government where power is delegated by the member states to an external authority.

Now what that means is the European members agree to delegate their authority to the European Union, in Brussels. Brussels will go and make laws, they’ll go and vote on those laws, and then they will come and implement those laws when they get back home. The horns give their power to the beast. Now you will notice by the way, when you come to Revelation 17, there are no crowns, there are now crowns. The beasts of Revelation 12 have crowns upon their heads, Revelation 13 had crowns on their horns, well, what’s become of the crowns? Well, the crowns have been given up by the horns. The horns have given their power to the European Union. You might say if anybody holds the crowns, it is the woman, she’s the one who is really holding the crowns. See, everything’s changed when you come to Revelation Ch 17. And I might say, the European Union is not trying to hide the fact of its origins. Outside of the European Union headquarters in Brussels we have a woman riding the beast. You know the Greek mythological story of Europa went like this, that the God Zeus formed himself as a bull and he abducts this woman, this girl called Europa, and he charges off into the Mediterranean into the Island of Cyprus with her. Now that symbol, that mythology,  you know, pre-dates the book of Revelation, it is a 2,000 BC old story, and the Lord Jesus Christ has taken the figure of a woman riding a bull and converted it to the woman riding the beast, the woman is not Europa, she is the Catholic Church. The beast is not a bull it is the scarlet-colored beast of Revelation 13, and when you come to the book of Revelation, far from the beast abducting the woman, in this case, the woman steers the beast. That’s the story of Revelation 17. So you can see that based on Europe’s own mythology, a marvel isn’t it, and here is the European Union flag, where did they get those 12 stars from? Well, in Revelation 12, you’ve got a woman standing on the moon, clothed with the sun, ringed on her head by 12 stars. Now the Catholics, of course, think this is a vision of Mary, and because of the Catholic influence in the European Union, they’ve put that halo of 12 stars on the flag and said, there’s the flag of the European Union. It’s the halo of Mary. You can see who’s driving the key policy decisions of this Union, can’t you?

Revelation 17:8 says, “that beast that you saw that was and is not,” that is the beast of the sea of Revelation 13. He would “ascend out of the bottomless pit,” but he will go to destruction but he comes out of the bottomless pit, and the European Union rises from the ashes of Europe after the desperate work of Napoleon, and she comes back to life, governed by the woman of the Catholic Church. Now these, the flag, the woman riding the beast might be very familiar symbols to you, but you may have noticed this, in the Christadelphian magazine of March 2013, this is a sign, I’ve blown up on the side of the screen, this is a sign, bought at the European Parliament in Brussels, and a brother took a photo of that in March 2013, because Europe, on that sign, Brussels is saying, “out of the abyss, how Europeans built peace together. Now here’s the question for you, how many people in the world know that that’s directly from Revelation 17?  few, extremely few. Here’s an issue for Christadelphians to clearly identify the beast, the scarlet-colored beast of Revelation Ch 17. This is a sign saying “wake up Christadelphians, because my return is very near,” and even the European Union, they don’t even know what they are writing, is putting up signs saying, “Watch us, we’ve just come out of the abyss,” and they emblazon that in Brussels. Unbelievable!

Here is a question for the sharp-sighted, when you come to V 12-13 of Revelation Ch 17, it says here that the ten horns are ten kings and they haven’t yet received their kingdom, but they have received power as kings one hour with the beast, and they’ve got one mind and they give their power and strength to the beast, well, why don’t they give their power and strength to the woman? Why isn’t the woman mentioned in v 12-13 of Revelation Ch 17? And when this beast, v 14, makes war with the lamb, the lamb kills the beast, but you’ve got no mention of the woman, what’s become of the woman in Revelation Ch 17? I mean, she began in v 3 by riding the beast, what’s happened to her? Well, I won’t answer that now, but you might like to think what that answer might be before we get to the end.

OK, that’s the easy stuff, there has been far too long telling stories. We’ve followed the European beast from its advent in the days of Constantine, all the way up to the formation of the European Union, and into today. Now let’s think hard about this. This is a deeply personal application here, because look at v. 14, this is the destruction of the scarlet-colored beast of Revelation Ch 17. “They shall make war with the lamb,” who shall? the ten kings of v 12-13, “they shall make war with the lamb, for the lamb shall overcome them because he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings and they that are with him are called, and chosen and faithful.” Well, the reason the Lord is called King of Kings is because there are ten kings in v 12, who happen to have a different opinion, so he says, “they are kings, but I am the King of Kings,” and so there is a contrast made between the authority of the Lord in v 14 and the authority of the ten kings of Europe in v 12, and those ten kings, and the beast they support are going to be destroyed by those that are “called, and chosen and faithful.” Well, there is no mistake, brothers and sisters, who that is, that is the saints.

The conflict between the “man on the horse” and the scarlet-colored European beast

Now here is an interesting thing, because we’ve got a one verse description in Revelation 17 of the conflict between the man on the horse, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the beast, the scarlet-colored beast. If you want the detail on this battle, come across to Revelation Ch 19. Here’s the story of the destruction of the scarlet-colored beast of Revelation Ch 17. Look at v 11, “and I saw heaven opened,” says John, “and behold a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true and with righteousness he does judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire and on his head were many crowns and he had a name written which no man knew but he himself, and he was clothed with vesture dipped in blood and his name was called the Word of God, and the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses clothed in fine linen white and clean.” There is no mistaking who those armies are, clothed in fine linen, because you will see in v 8 that the bride of Christ is arrayed in fine linen clean and white. So those riding horses accompanying the man on the horse, v 14, clothed in linen, are none other than the saints, that’s the “called, chosen and faithful,” of Revelation Ch 17 and v 14.

Well, what do they do? v 15. “And out of his mouth,” this is the man on the horse, the Lord Jesus Christ, “out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations and he shall rule them with a rod of iron and he treads the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of almighty God.” Now, that winepress that he treads is none other than the winepress of Revelation 14 and v 19, where he treads “the vintage of the earth,” this is after Armageddon, this is the destruction of the beast of Europe, in Revelation 14, that second appendix in Revelation 14, the vintage of the earth, the treading of the winepress, that’s what you are reading here in more detail in Revelation 19:15.

In v 16, “and he had on his vesture and on his thigh, a name written, “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” and that’s exactly what you read in Revelation 17:14, that he is the “King of Kings,” that is to say, he is the king of the ten kings amongst others. The result of this conflict is clear, and you read of that in v 19 of Revelation 19. “I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth,” so that’s the beasts and the kings from Revelation Ch 17. “I saw them gathered together, and there armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse and against his army. So here’s the beast of EU now acknowledging war with Christ and the saints, “and the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet,” so the Pope’s still there, “the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that had worshiped his image, these both were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone.”

So there they are, there is the final end of the beast, that is the scarlet-colored beast of Revelation Ch 13, and the false prophet, the Papacy. They are destroyed in year 50, right before the commencement of the millennial age. The dragon as we have said, he’s down for 1,000 years after Armageddon, but these two, they are destroyed before the kingdom proper begins. That’s what Revelation gives us on this conflict. Do you want to see the real detail of this war? Do you want to see what the saints are really doing and are really thinking as this war is waged? These are those who are adorned in fine linen, white and clean, let’s now talk about what they are doing whilst this war takes place. Come with me to Psalm 2. Have you ever read this Psalm? Look at this, Psalm 2, this is the chronology of the warfare, the conflict between the European beast and the Lord Jesus Christ and the saints. This Psalm is quoted in Revelation 19:15 where it speaks of the rod of iron, Christ will destroy them with a rod of iron. It is quoted in Revelation 19:19, where the Kings of the earth gather themselves together. Two phrases of Psalm 2 appear in Revelation 19 where we were. That’s how we know that Psalm 2 is a commentary on the events of Revelation Ch 19, the warfare between the beast, the false prophet and the Lord Jesus Christ and the saints.

Now what is the structure of Psalm 2? Psalm 2:1-3 are the visions, v 4-9 are the story of the Psalm, and v 10-12 is the wise advice from the saints to the world, at the end of the Psalm. So there’s v 1-3, the vision, v 4-9, the story of the Psalm, v 10-12, the wise advice. Now this Psalm must take place at a time after the battle of Armageddon, because it says in v 6, “Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion, and you know yourselves, that the Lord Jesus Christ only takes the city of Jerusalem after the battle of Armageddon. So this Psalm is fulfilled after the battle of Armageddon, but it must be fulfilled, when you think about the wars in the book of Revelation, we have to have Armageddon in our day and we have an Armageddon in a thousand years time. Well this is obviously referring to the first Armageddon because Christ has just taken Mt Zion. V 8 tells us, “Ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” Well, that doesn’t happen at the end of the millennial age, the nations are not given to Christ then, they are given to Christ right at the start of the millennial age, so this Psalm is therefore happening before the 1,000 begins, when Christ has got all the nations under his control, but after the battle of Armageddon, when he is king in Zion. Can you see we have narrowed the fulfilment of Psalm 2 down to a 40 year period between year 10, the battle of Armageddon, and year 50 the commencement of the 1,000 years. Psalm 2 is fulfilled during the seventh vial, that 40 year period of Revelation Ch 16.

Now what’s the Psalm talking about then? It tells you in the opening verses that this is a vision of the council of war of the European Union as they mount the beast and go out to fight the Lord Jesus Christ. Look what it says, v 5, “Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing,” the word “rage” here as your margin tells you means “to assemble tumultuously,” or a tumult that is made. Now that is interesting because, that’s exactly what happened at the crucifixion, another tumult was made, right at the crucifixion, and they are doing it again. Why do they “rage?” Well, the reason they rage is because they think they are meeting in secret. They don’t realise that the prophet is telling us every word that they speak in the bed-chambers. They are extremely upset by the fact that whatever they do, the Lord and the saints seem to know their next move. “So the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against Yahweh and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. “ Now read that carefully in v 3. “They take counsel together,” and they say, “let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us,” and so it appears when you come to v 3 as though the nations of the world have been restrained in some manner, and something happens which upsets them and they decide to break the shackles of this restraint and let themselves loose. What could that be? The kings of the earth you see, have been subdued by the application of v 3 and something changes that upsets them and now they want to break free. It says, v 2 that “the kings of the earth set themselves,” and the New International version says that “they take their stand.” So what you have got in v 2 is a formal meeting, there are delegates, there are speakers, this is a session of the European Parliament taking place in Psalm 2:2. And what you can infer from v 1-3 is that things have been going along just fine and that all of a sudden, something happens which incenses the kings of the earth. They feel the need to break free from the control that the Lord Jesus Christ apparently has over them, and “cast away his cords from them.”

Now I will show you something very interesting, just hold Psalm 2, and come across to Psalm 66. Psalm 66 gives you another commentary on the events at this specific period of time. Look what it says in Psalm 66:1, it’s a very important point. “Make a joyful noise unto God all you lands.” So here is the world being exhorted to worship the God of heaven. “Sing forth the honor of his name, make his praise glorious, say unto God, how terrible art thou in thy works. Through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves to thee, all the earth shall worship thee, they shall sing unto thee, they shall sing to thy name.” Think of that. So here is an opening refrain, you see, in Psalm 66, where all the world acclaims the glory of God and the greatness of his works and all his enemies submit themselves to Him. Look at this word “submit” in v 3 as it is rendered in your margin. “They yield feigned obedience,” they lie. Now what’s the point? Think of it like this, right after the battle of Armageddon, what happens? Well, after the battle of Armageddon we have the “mid-heaven proclamation,” and the mid-heaven proclamation is saying the very words of Psalm 66:1. “Make a joyful noise unto Yahweh, all the world, sing forth the honor of the God of Heaven, praise” and they do, they do, everything seems to be going well. The Mid-heaven proclamation appears as though it is going to be successful, and the saints run to the four corners of the world and into the corridors of power, and they appear to have a measure of success, and the world submits, “feignedly, feignedly.”They submit because they are shell-shocked. They are still reeling after the battle of Armageddon and they know they’ve got a foe before them who is much bigger than they are when the saints take that message out, some obviously see the immediate implications and there’s a heartfelt repentance at a national level. Other nations go quiet, they go silent, and you think you’ve changed them but you haven’t really.

Back in Psalm 2, the kings of the world have got a problem and they plan for war and now the whole scene changes because between V 4-9 they’ve got the story of the Psalm. This is the Divine reaction to Brussels meeting and planning war against Christ and the saints, v 4. “He that sitteth in the heaven shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision.” Why does God laugh? Because Isaiah 40:15 says, “Behold the nations are as a drop in the bucket and are counted as small dust in the balance, the nations before God are as nothing they are counted as less than nothing.”  God says, “this is ridiculous,” v 5 “Then he shall speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure, yet,” he says, “have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” There’s the ultimatum. God speaks himself and says, “You ten kings, I have already appointed a king, I have already appointed the king,” and when you come to V 7 the Lord Jesus Christ speaks for himself, and he says, “I will declare the decree, Yahweh has said to me, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. I am the fulfilment to the promises to David, my Father has given me the kingdoms of the world.” Then the Father speaks again himself, this time to the Son, v 8, “Son, ask of me and I will give the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thine possession. I am giving you everything, son” he says. “Thou shalt break them in pieces with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” There’s your quotation from Revelation Ch 19. That verse in V9 is also quoted as you know in Revelation 2:27, this is the work of the saints who are going to dash the nations in pieces who are rebelling against the son. This is the work, you might also say, of the seven thunders of Revelation Ch 10, these are the judgments that are being poured out on the scarlet-colored beast of Revelation Ch 17.  And now the final appeal from the Psalmist, and these must be the words of the saints to an unruly world who thinks that it can take on the man on the horse and win. “Be wise,” v 10, “Be wise therefore ye kings, be instructed you judges of the earth, serve Yahweh with fear and rejoice with trembling, kiss the son, kiss the son,  lest he be angry and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little.” When you upset him just a little, he will destroy you. When it says in v 12, “Kiss the son,” it simply means “to be subject to the son.” 1 Kings 19:18 God says, “Yet have I left me 7,000 in Israel which have not bowed to Baal or kissed him.” To “kiss the son,” here means “to be subject to” the son. And in conclusion, says the Psalmist, “blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.” Very similar sentence, by the way, to the very first verse of Psalm 1, when the whole world is divided between the “ungodly,” or the “righteous,” “blessed are they that put their trust in him.”

You know the background to this Psalm. It doesn’t say it here, but Acts 4: 25 tells us that it was a Psalm of David. Obviously, when you come to v 6, “I’ve set my king on the holy hill of Zion,” this is the time when David sets his king upon Zion, so this is the time when David crowns Solomon to be the king.  Do you know what else was happening at the very time that Solomon was crowned king? Well, there was a revolt, wasn’t there? There was an enormous revolt in the city. Adonijah wanted to be king, he‘s got the support of Joab, the military, and he’s got the support of Abiathar, the priesthood, so politics, religion and military might unite against David’s appointed king. You see, they’ve done it once before and they are doing it again here. This is exactly the conflict of the Psalm.

One hour with the beast

Now here’s the question, you can see the Jubilee period on the screen, we know that V 6 of the Psalm takes place right after year 10 and the battle of Armageddon and v 8 of the Psalm when the nations of the world are given to the Jesus Christ, that must happen around the year 50, before the 1,000 year begins. That’s what I say about the 40 years in which this Psalm is fulfilled. When does the Psalm take place? Well, it takes place in that last 30 years, that’s the “one hour with the beast,” that’s a quotation from Revelation 17:12. There is one hour with the beast and the word “beast” there in that reference is the beast of Revelation Ch 17. This is when Psalm 2 is taking place. So here’s the question, why, all of a sudden, do the “nations rage?” Why after apparently submitting themselves to the edicts of the Mid-heaven proclamation between years 10 and 20, what changes that makes the heathen rage and then establish a military campaign against the Lord and the saints which results in their destruction? What’s gone wrong? Well, there’s a clue, you see. Come back to Revelation Ch 16 now, it’s this phrase, “the Kings of the earth”, It’s the “kings of the earth” in Psalm 2 that set themselves against Yahweh and His anointed. The Phrase, “Kings of the earth” occurs nine times in the book of Revelation, and seven times, in very quick succession, in this particular part of the book of Revelation, so if you look for example at Revelation Ch 16:14, you will see that there are certain “spirits of madness working miracles, going forth to the kings of the earth, to bring them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty.” So the kings of the earth are shepherded toward the battle of Armageddon by a certain “spirit of madness” which has percolated amongst the nations.

Ch 17:2, there is “a woman,” at the end of v1, “sitting upon many waters,” with whom the “kings of the earth have committed fornication.” So these kings of the earth are Catholic Kings of the earth, they have committed fornication with the Catholic Church of Revelation 17:1.  Revelation 17: 18, “and the woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth,” so they are Roman controlled, Roman religion controlled, kings of the earth. Ch 18:3, “all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.” So the kings of the earth have committed fornication with the Catholic Church. She has taken many paramours, hasn’t she? Rev 18:9, “The kings of the earth who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her shall bewail for her and lament for her when they shall see the smoke of her burning.” And the last reference is one we have already read, in Revelation 19:19.

OK, what would you make of the kings of the earth? Well as we started in Revelation 16, everything was going along fine, wasn’t it? They were courting the Papacy, the Papacy was shepherding them in whatever direction she wanted, everything appeared to be going fine, but by the time you get down to Ch 18:19, the kings of the earth are upset, they are extremely upset, and a bewailing is heard, and a lamenting is heard, at the smoke of her burning, what’s gone wrong with the kings of the earth in Revelation 18:9? Well, what’s gone wrong is V 8, therefore, speaking of the woman of Revelation 18, “therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine, she’s to be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.” We’ve just killed the woman who rode the beast, in Revelation 18:8. What does she represent? She represents the Catholic Church. When did that happen in our 50 years? in year 20. Can you see the problem? In the 20^th year after Christ returns we destroy the city of Rome, we destroy the entire administration of the Roman Catholic Church. The woman has been killed. The Lateran Palace where they signed the Treaty of Rome and formed the European Union, is fallen into a big hole in the ground. There’s nothing left. This is the culture of the whole of Europe. This is the eternal city, which has been destroyed.

So can you see what’s happened, brothers and sisters and young people, the Mid-Heaven proclamation has gone out, some nations have converted and some nations haven’t but they haven’t put up any resistance, there appears to have been success as the saints race out to the world with the Mid-Heaven proclamation, but it doesn’t go far enough and the Lord destroys the city of Rome. And so incensed are the kings of the earth at the destruction of the woman they love, that they immediately call together the European Parliament and they have a meeting for war and they mean to destroy the man on the horse and his armies for what they did to that girl that they have spent 2,000 years courting. So the kings of the earth are drawn to Armageddon. The Lord chooses this moment to reveal himself to the world. The result is that the armies of the world are slain on the mountains of Israel in the 10^th year and the Lord takes the city of Jerusalem.

Fear God and give glory to him

Then the cry goes out and the Mid-Heaven proclamation is ushered in to the world, “Fear God, give glory to Him, judgment is coming, and after ten years the world is divided between two groups, those who “walk in the counsel of the ungodly,” and those who don’t, but of those who walk in the counsel of the ungodly, it is not immediately apparent that they haven’t submitted because they have submitted “feignedly.” It appears that they have acquiesced to the demands of the Lord and then the Lord touches a nerve and Rome is destroyed and the kings of the earth see red, and they immediately call a council of war and, you see, her smoke has risen and everybody in v 9 Ch 18, internationally, everybody knows that Rome has been destroyed. Does the Pope die when Rome is destroyed? I mean, you’ve got to believe he must have been somewhere near? He doesn’t die, because it is the woman who is destroyed in v8. When you come to Ch 19:20, the false prophet is thrown into the lake of fire, the Pope’s a survivor. He wasn’t in Rome when the Vatican was destroyed in Rev 18. Well what do you think he would do about that? So the kings of the earth stand back and look in horror. Christ has just destroyed the eternal city and the reaction is violent, they want revenge, and the submission, this “feigned” submission after the Mid-Heaven proclamation is now obvious that it was feigned. And the cry comes up from the camp of the saints, “steady she goes,” they say, “be wise, ye kings of the earth,” “be instructed, ye kings of the earth,” “kiss the son,” don’t anger the son, don’t do it! But they call the European Parliament together anyway. They are not interested in the Son, they’ve got their own father, you see, so they go to the Pope, “PaPa, what shall we do?” Crucify him, Crucify him, that’s what he said last time, that’s what he says this time, so they gather their armies together and they attack the man on the horse don’t they? That’s the power of the Catholic system, that’s the power of the beast. In the words of Ezekiel Ch 39, so the Lord sends fire upon Magog in that 30 years, or in the words of Dan 2, he grinds the remnant of that image to powder, or in the words of Revelation 16, he treads the winepress, or in the words of Revelation 14, he gathers the vintage of the earth, that’s the 30 years destruction of the beast because of what they now want to do to the man on the horse. That, brothers and sisters, is why the beast and the false prophet can never be allowed to live on into the commencement of the 1,000 years.  It is one thing to bind the military power of the dragon, but false religion? Unacceptable, unacceptable in the kingdom age and thus we have at the end of Revelation Ch 19, the destruction of the beast and the false prophet.

What have we got to? Well here’s what we know. The ten-horned nations of Europe will create a supranational empire to which the other national empires will be subordinate. This power will oppose the Lord Jesus Christ after his return. The horns will give power, meaning political strength, and strength, strength meaning military strength, to the beast in Revelation 17. So we would expect to see an increase in European economic and military capabilities prior to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Since the woman rides the beast, it will be a Catholic beast. Non-Catholics, that is the Islamic nations, particularly, will not be included in the European Union. Turkey has tried for 20 -30 years to join the EU. She will never join the EU, not because she doesn’t want to, but because the Pope won’t let her. The woman will vetoed any non-Christian countries joining the EU. The position of the woman on the back of the beast also suggests that the European Union will increasingly take direction from the Papacy. She guides the beast, doesn’t she. The woman on the beast, what’s more,  combines elements of the previous beast of the earth and of the beast of the sea. Since Germany was the central power of the Holy Roman Empire, you will expect her to remain the central power of the European Union. And finally, Britain, is never ever one of the ten horns of the European beast, therefore she must leave the European Union, if not sooner, certainly prior to the “one hour” that last 30 years of the Jubilee. This will also be true of people like Greece other countries from the former Eastern Roman Empire.